COP S2.9 Running out of time
Working with someone who hated me wasn’t going to happen. Which, of course, meant she’d hate me more.
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Previously on…
The group decided they’ll need a non-magical warrior type to help them investigate the Dangur ruins so Mise headed out to get an old friend to help. Lyn and Steffan tried to talk and it didn’t go well.
A swarm of fryn met me in the garden. “I’m not upset, just frustrated with her.” I kept walking until I found the same spot I had sat in earlier. I don’t think the fryn believed what I said since they came along with me. Even when they faded away, I knew on some level they were still there. Not just in the cave, but surrounding me. The familiar sensation of their intense, calming effort tingled in my head. I doubled down, not wanting to let go of my feelings until I was ready to let go.
I pulled out my sketchbook and drew Steffan, her face contorted, exaggerated, monstrous. It was as if her inside was on the outside. The curse, that Daunger evil, encapsulated her. It wasn’t all the curse, though. She’d been a nitch since we first met and I still didn’t know even know why she was there. It really didn’t make sense for Harry to send anyone after me, especially someone so inexperienced.
I kept sketching, adding more to her features and then a background. The drawing just took shape as if my hands were directed by someone else. At some point I stopped, all my energy having been spent, and I looked at what I had done.
Thankfully, I didn’t end up drawing her, or the curse’s, pattern. The outline of a rather large house and small shrubs loomed large behind her to the right. To the left were the backs of four figures clearly walking away from her. One small travel bag, tipped over, rested at the base of more shrubs along the right side of a path to the house.
That’s when I let go of my frustration. Maybe it had been the fryn influencing my hands as I drew, or maybe I just funneled what I’d seen from reading her in Kenuport. I had no doubt though, that it was the moment she’d been cast out. It reflected mine. Maybe it was mine with her inserted. It didn’t really matter. We had a shared experience. I sympathized with her more than she knew, or that I could apparently show.
I wanted to help her, if she would only let me. But for now, I still planned on making the case she needed to stay behind. Not only was her control of magic questionable, she seemed bent on doing exactly the opposite of what I said. I still wasn’t thrilled about working with other people to begin with. Working with someone who hated me wasn’t going to happen. Which, of course, meant she’d hate me more.
“So that didn’t go well.”
Tass’ voice startled me. I looked up to find him examining my drawing of Steffan. I shut the book. “What is it with you people sneaking up on me out here?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to argue with him. I needed to get him on my side.
He shrugged his shoulders and turned to go back into the cottage.
“Wait. We need to talk.”
“We just did that. A lot of that.” He strode up to me. “It’s time we do something.”
I shot up. “Is Mise back already?” We hadn’t prepared yet.
“No. No. Ash and I want to try something, but only if you’re in a receptive mood.”
“Try what?” I tried not to be insulted at his mention of my mood, but it did irritate me.
“That’s not receptive.”
“I am receptive. Tell me.”
He looked out over the garden and sighed before returning my gaze. “I’d believe you if you weren’t scowling at me like that.”
“Scowling?”
He made a face I assumed was supposed to mimic mine. It didn’t look pleasant. “I don’t look like that. You’re exaggerating.” Still, I did my best to relax and…not scowl.
“You—” he put his hands on his hips. “You don’t look like that, but you do scowl. But it doesn’t matter. Come back inside so Ash can explain it.”
“So more talking? Not doing.”
“Talk then doing. If, you don’t scowl and are receptive.” There was a hint of a grin on his face. He seemed to enjoy teasing me.
It didn’t immediately irritate me more, so I must’ve enjoyed it too. On some level. I put thoughts about why that might be away in favor of getting to my point. “No scowling and be receptive. I agree, as long as you agree Steffan will not come with us to Hofton.”
It was his turn to scowl. “We’ll need all the help we can get—”
I stopped him there and launched into a summary of all the reasons why she shouldn’t go, but leaning heavily into her rudimentary magic skills. The fact she and I did not get along, I dropped in at the end.
Tass was quiet when I finished. I really wished I could read him. As it was, I thought I could see his thoughts bouncing in his head from the pros to the cons of her going. When he finally met my eyes again, he surprised me.
“You’re not wrong. She leaks magic like a sieve. From what Ash told me…”
“What did he tell you?”
He shook his head. “Not my place to say. Just know that there are reasons for her lack of control. Perhaps it would be best for her to stay with Ash. He can help with some of it, anyway.”
The mystery around her deepened and that annoying need to know everything crept up on me. I caught it before it made more trouble. “Good. That sounds like a plan. I think two sennpans and a fighter are a better team, anyway. We can get things sorted faster and move quicker.”
“We can hope that’s how it goes.” There was that grin again.
This time, I grinned back.
***
Steffan wasn’t happy when Asher told her she’d be staying behind. She was less happy when he told her she couldn’t stay at the cottage. I jumped in and offered her the house in Yiat, but apparently he had a better idea. They left together through the tea door, leaving me feel a little jealous.
“Where does that door go?”
“Do you have to know everything?” Tass sounded a little exasperated.
“I want to know everything, yes. That’s the real reason I do what I do.” I couldn’t believe I’d just said that out loud.
“Hmmm. I hadn’t picked you out as a scholar or intellectual.”
I resisted the urge to hit him. “Are you saying you think I’m stupid?”
He waved his arms in protest. “No, no. Of course not. It’s just most scholars I’ve seen prefer their books over running into cursed chambers.”
“Well, I’m not that kind of scholar. I question things and like to find the answers using a more first hand approach. And speaking of, I need to go back to Yiat. I brought some supplies, but I really want to have Spiri with me if I’m hunting down cursed things.”
“She’s a percira, isn’t she?”
“Did Jor tell you that? I don’t know how he knows—oh no, he’s not a sennpan too, is he?”
“You never read him?”
“No. I don’t read without permission. Usually.” I rubbed my chest where he’d pushed back on me after reading him in Yiat.
“He, he could be. If he is, it’s buried, like my ability was. I call him a sensitive. His intuition is spot on. Always. But he doesn’t actively know how to do anything.”
Considering my experience with Nia, I would put money she was the same. Always there, prepared for anything. Well, almost anything. Her lodger showing up with a cursed woman seemed to have shaken her, though she’d handled it well. I had her to thank for my healing, too. If she hadn’t found Tass, who knows how I would have ended up. “You don’t think the Demeid can use him, do you? Would it try to corrupt someone like him, awaken those abilities for its own purposes?”
“That’s exactly what it did to me. So yes, it would.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Not even after he’d explained his experience in the Chamber. “Oh hell. That makes everything so much worse.”
Tass let the silence speak for itself. We were twirling at the end of a precipice, in the dark, where at any moment we could lose our footing. And we hadn’t even started yet. I didn’t like where that sensation took me, so I changed the subject. “How do we get back to Yiat? I don’t want to walk back again. Does the portal from the wall go both ways?”
“Yes, and no.”
“As helpful as always.”
“You didn’t let me finish. And would you rather get back to Yiat or sit here discussing the rules of portal usage?”
“Good point. But what about Asher? Should we wait to talk to him? What did I need to be ‘receptive’ for?”
“It can wait. I’ll leave a note we’ve gone to Yiat.”
After he wrote the note, I grabbed my pack and followed him out the cave door.
***
I peppered Tass with questions about the portal we’d use to get back to Yiat as we left. As usual, he didn’t want to tell me very much, but he said the wall portal wasn’t safe to use during the day. Apparently, that monument to the Imot attracted too many tourists.
“Tourists? This far north?” I laughed.
“It’s true. There are ships full of them, coming just to see the Living Wall of Yiat.”
“Wonderful.” I considered myself lucky that my time in Yiat hadn’t coincided with hordes of wall gawkers. Probably because of the hours I kept. And that I stayed as far away from the walls as I could.
He paused in front of the little outcrop I’d used to sit and draw.
“No. Another one? Here? Why didn’t I go through when I sat?”
He sighed. “Most portals don’t stay open. You have to activate them, and you have to know the right pattern.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Wait. Wouldn’t activating a portal help the Demeid, too?”
“No. Using a portal that already exists doesn’t make a difference. They have been here and are part of the barrier that keeps it in the chamber. The portal system is pure. If you, or I, made a new one, it would corrupt all of them.”
I smiled. “So you can show me how to do it.”
He chuckled. “You really do want to know everything.”
“Especially when it is something that will save me hours walking, or maybe my life.” Another thought occurred to me. “Wait. Why didn’t you use a portal to bring Steffan and I here that night?” The anger about being covered in shit rose again.
“I did. We’re a long way from Yiat, but I couldn’t very well carry her—or you—to the portal. Even in Yiat, carrying a body around draws suspicion.” He put his hand on his forehead. “Look, are we going or staying to argue?”
“Going, but I still want to know how to activate them.”
“That’ll take time. It isn’t as simple as putting a key in a door. And every portal, every destination, is different. It took me years to learn what I know and there are many I don’t.”
“Just teach me this one, then.”
He shook his head. “Too complicated and with all the fryn, it’s extremely hard to see.”
I put my hands on my hips and glared at him.
“Really. I promise to teach you, but right now, we need to get your horse and get to Hofton.”
I knew he was right. That eerie sensation inside me, buried deep thanks to the fryn, rose up just enough to fill me with a sense of impending dread. I didn’t know how long we had, but we were running out of time.
Next episode on Saturday May 10, 2025.
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